A personal view of Australian and International Politics

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

France and Spain race to curb wildfires before new heatwave arrives.

Extract from ABC News

Topic:Fires

1 hours ago

In short:

Spanish and French authorities face two crucial days to bring wildfires under control before a new heatwave hits in western Europe.

Fires to the west of Spain's Madrid continue to rage, while fires in France are now 15km from the city of Bordeaux.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez highlighted the impact of climate change, saying the wildfires were "more ferocious" and "heatwaves more frequent".

Firefighters are racing to subdue massive wildfires in France and Spain before a new heatwave hits Europe.

Crews are battling blazes threatening the French city and wine region of Bordeaux and in areas to the west of Madrid.

About 220,000 people, including tourists and residents, have been evacuated in France, while further south in Spain about 100,000 have been told to leave their homes or seek shelter, authorities said.

A firefighter aims a water hose at a blackened tree with smoke smouldering around it. — Firefighters battle a blaze in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, Madrid. (Reuters: Ana Beltran)

Another heatwave is expected to hit in both countries later this week, in what has been a blisteringly hot and dry summer across Western Europe.

Firefighters faced an especially dangerous situation in Vall d'Uixó, in the eastern Castellon province, where the ground contains old ordnance from the Spanish Civil War that explodes when the flames reach the area, Chevi Bolumar, fire chief of the Valencian Regional Government, told public broadcaster TVE.

Firefighters aim a hose at flames lining the road — Firefighters battle a wildfire near Marcheprime, outside Bordeaux. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

The French fires, which broke out last week near the Atlantic coast, are now only 15 kilometres from entry points to the main metropolitan area of Bordeaux.

"This is a fire of a size never seen before," Jerome Steffe, mayor of Cestas, one of the suburbs just outside the main Bordeaux city area, said.

French President Emmanuel Macron was due to visit the region later in the day, his office said.

Locals suffer 'emotional loss'

The spread of the large fires converging in central Spain slowed overnight, authorities said.

But the blaze in the Castellon province raged out of control as the weather agency warned of another potential heatwave this week.

"What we're experiencing isn't a succession of isolated events," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

"It's the most painful expression of a climate emergency that is making sixth-generation wildfires more ferocious, heatwaves more frequent, and our territory more vulnerable,"

he said.

The so-called sixth-generation fires are the most extreme and uncontrollable category of forest blazes, capable of generating their own weather and destroying thousands of hectares every hour. Many scientists blame such fires and heatwaves on human-driven climate change.

Maria Angeles Serrano, an evacuee in Castellon, said she was particularly upset about the impact on nature. "Material damage is one thing, but that can be repaired, so to speak. What really hurts is the emotional loss."

A firefighter stands on top of a fire truck aiming a fire hose at a forest. — Fires have also affected Saint-Jean d'Illac, in France's Gironde region. (Reuters: Manon Cruz)

Heat set to build again this week

The wildfires around Bordeaux in south-western France have delivered a shock to the regional economy, Finance Minister Roland Lescure said on Monday, local time. The region is one of the centres of French wine production and a major centre for tourism.

"It's like a clap of thunder for an area which could have done without this," Mr Lescure told reporters.

In central Spain, three separate fronts remained active in the mountains north-west of Madrid.

Authorities estimate that a combined 77,000 hectares have burnt so far across the provinces of Madrid, Toledo and Avila. The one in Avila has been classified as the biggest wildfire in recent Spanish history.

A huge amount of red-coloured water falls from an airplane. — France has been dropping fire retardant as wildfires rage near Marcheprime, outside Bordeaux. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

"Today and tomorrow are absolutely crucial days in tackling this wildfire. From Wednesday onwards, weather forecasts become significantly more unfavourable for firefighting operations, but we remain confident," said Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

France faced a similar situation, with slightly easier conditions on Monday, local time, before temperatures rise again to as high as 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) later this week in the Bordeaux area, according to France's weather office.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the fire had not spread overnight, but the danger had not passed.

"It isn't contained. I absolutely do not want to sound reassuring. That is not my intention. We must remain very focused and very determined,"

he said.

In both Bordeaux and Avila, July high temperatures have averaged 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), almost 6C above the month's normal high between 1961 and 1990, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor.

Response under scrutiny

A plane flies through heavy smoke just above a tree line. — Other European countries have sent planes to help France fight wildfires. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

The scale of this summer's wildfires in Europe is putting pressure on firefighting resources and raising questions about how to respond.

Under the European Union's civil protection mechanism, Greece and Italy have each sent two Canadair water-bombing aircraft to Spain, while Portugal has deployed more than 100 military personnel and equipment.

Two more planes were due to arrive from Turkey, Spain's interior ministry said.

Switzerland is supporting France by sending two Super Puma helicopters and their crews after a request from Paris.

Smoke rises from burnt out houses and trees. — Houses and nature have been devastated by wildfires in Spain. (AP: Manu Fernandez)

Reuters

Trump tips the balance towards China in trade war.

Analysis

By chief business correspondent Ian Verrender

Topic:Manufacturing

2 hours ago

A graphic of an arm wrestle. — The US and China are in an economic tussle as China dominates global supply chains. (Foreign Correspondent: Emma Machan)

The end, when it arrived, was as chaotic as the birth.

On November 9, 1989, after months of escalating protests, an East German official mistakenly announced on live television that citizens could travel unimpeded to the West, immediately.

Within hours, hordes of citizens had stormed the border checkpoints, swamping the guards who had little option but to simply open the gates.

After decades of food shortages, long lines for consumer goods and failing infrastructure, it was bookmarked as the end of the Cold War and the penultimate victory of capitalism over centrally planned economies.

Communism was pronounced dead.

Within two years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved, Mikhail Gorbachev had stood aside and, with China a largely agrarian nation in the early throes of its economic transformation, Western leaders had every reason to feel triumphant.

Not so now.

In just 35 years, Beijing's leaders have plotted a course that has seen China emerge as the undisputed leader of industrial production with almost complete dominance over the refining of nearly every mineral on the planet and in manufacturing.

In a world trying to grapple with the best way to wean itself off fossil fuels, China's automotive industry is poised to blow away global competition on electric vehicles following the West's ill-conceived reliance on internal combustion engines.

Not surprisingly, it is also the dominant player in electrification. While the West endlessly argued over the science of climate change, China got on with the business of climate change.

It has the market sewn up in everything from solar panels to battery manufacturing and wind turbines.

And now, it is challenging America's commanding role in technology.

There is a very real prospect that its artificial intelligence models can operate at the same level of sophistication as those developed by the Silicon Valley giants but at a fraction of the price.

None of these developments has occurred by accident. They've been implemented and adhered to over decades, unencumbered by opposing political wills or concerns about human rights.

Deng Xiaoping, who was 87 when the Soviet Union collapsed, famously identified rare earths — something China had in abundance — as a critical industrial input that China could someday use as a strategic instrument with which to wield power.

"The Middle East has oil," he told colleagues in 1992. "China has rare earths."

The clock is ticking

Can America wrest back control of global manufacturing?

President Donald Trump thinks so.

Much of the thinking within Trump's MAGA camp is rooted in the belief that China unfairly exploited free trade rules and engaged in industrial espionage to get its foot up on the industrial ladder.

The thinking goes that the US simply needs to shut down those avenues and repatriate US firms back to the mainland through a combination of threats and incentives and by building a protective tariff wall around the US economy.

While there's little doubt China used every trick in the book, nefarious and otherwise, to advance its cause, it also cleverly formulated a complex mix of free market reforms to foster entrepreneurialism with an overarching and unwavering state plan.

The result was a rapid transformation from agrarian communism to polluting heavy industry, from family farms to factories.

Along the way, the population grew richer, which helped quell political dissent as workers shifted from the countryside to cities, new and old.

When that didn't work, the dissent was met with the kind of brute force that only a one-party state can mete out, where the interests of the state subsume the rights of individuals.

But there remains a fundamental difference between the economic trajectories of both countries.

China was forging a brave new world.

America, under Trump, is attempting to wind back the clock.

Detroit's long drive to nowhere

For generations, Detroit was the centre of global automobile excellence.

It was the textbook example of factory assembly line management and, later, automation.

In 1965, about 95 per cent of Americans drove cars made by the Detroit Three: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. By 2015, that had dropped to 46 per cent.

Assembly worker works on a Chevrolet car — Japan was the first disruptor of American car manufacturing. (AP: Paul Sancya)

It wasn't China that first drove the wrecking ball through the US car industry. It was Japan.

Beautifully designed, fuel-efficient, high-performance machines with an air of luxury, the Japanese auto invasion sent the US manufacturers on a mission, not so much to improve, but to seek protection and, eventually, bail-outs.

Clearly, it didn't work.

And now, it faces an existential threat.

As far back as 2001, as part of its 10th five-year plan, Beijing decided to pursue the development of electric vehicles.

For years, it had encouraged foreign manufacturers to set up operations in China, building conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, but decided it needed an edge, something new to compete on the global market.

It was also keen to cut back on pollution, which was becoming a social and political issue, and to simultaneously reduce demand for oil, which had to be transported from the Middle East through potentially hostile waters.

China now has a near stranglehold on EV production. It is also the world's biggest market, accounting for 65 per cent of all sales.

Alarmed, then-US President Joe Biden slapped a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese built EVs but announced a series of tax incentives and tailpipe emissions standards to encourage the US industry to build them.

Under the Trump administration, those incentives have mostly been dumped.

The Detroit Three, along with most US-based foreign manufacturers, have now either shelved or totally abandoned plans to build electric cars in the US.

In the past two years, Ford, Buick, Dodge, Jeep, Honda, Nissan and Acura have scrapped a series of US-built SUVs, pick-ups and passenger cars. Volvo junked an entire all-electric line-up.

The losses were staggering. The write-downs on the scrapped projects cost the Detroit Three close to $US50 billion.

As a result, the US now builds just 5 per cent of the world's EVs, at a time when global demand is booming following America's ill-fated war with Iran that has shut the Strait of Hormuz and highlighted the dangers of reliance on fossil fuels.

While the tariffs have removed competition and helped juice US auto makers' profits, they are now making cars the world increasingly doesn't want.

Tech wreck next

This time last week, Wall Street was shuddering after the partial release of a new AI model from a hitherto unknown start-up.

Moonshot's Kimi K3 was judged to be almost as good as the flagship models from AI heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI.

The main difference was that it was up to 30 per cent cheaper.

This week, analysts and users will pore over the fully released technology when it becomes available to the public.

The White House and Anthropic have accused Moonshot of stealing the technology through a process called distillation, opening up a new battleground for trade disputes.

Will Moonshot’s AI bring Silicon Valley back to earth?

They've also accused it of illegally accessing the high-powered Nvidia chips, which the US has banned from Chinese tech companies.

Wall Street's tech titans are likely to spend upwards of $US1 trillion this year on AI investment, money that will be difficult to recoup if much cheaper AI versions are available.

Again, Beijing years ago prioritised technology as a key area for investment and has helped foster the development of local companies.

State sponsorship doesn't merely mean cash handouts. When it came to its minerals and refining domination, it invested in research, discovering new processing methods that gave its companies access to cheaper forms of production.

And despite government investment, it hasn't been afraid to let private entities go under.

About 30 EV manufacturers have hit the wall since 2018, and some estimate that around 400 manufacturers have exited the industry in the past two decades.

The US and the West may still have control of global finance. But when it comes to industry, it is China, a command economy, that has the reins and is extending that grip into new and important arenas.

When it comes to economic management, the jury is still out.

Monday, 27 July 2026

Wildfires threaten wine city of Bordeaux as France and Spain battle blazes.

Extract from ABC News

Topic:Fires

2 minutes ago

In short:

Flames from wildfires burning in south-west France are creeping ever closer to Bordeaux.

The mayor of the historic wine city says, for now, an evacuation is not on the cards.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already been forced to leave their homes due to wildfires in France and Spain.

Wildfires have advanced towards the outskirts of the historic French wine city of Bordeaux, as France and Spain battle blazes that have already forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.

About 220,000 people have been evacuated in France, while in Spain more than 75,000 people have been told to leave their homes and a further 30,000 ordered to shelter in place, authorities said.

In France, fires have ravaged the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast, a popular tourist destination, and spread through areas surrounding Bordeaux, where firefighters are trying to prevent the flames from reaching the regional capital.

A line of tall trees are on fire. Orange flames light up the dark, night sky. — Trees burn as a wildfire rages near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave described the blaze as being "at the gates of the metropolitan area," about 15 kilometres away at its closest point.

But Mr Cazenave said an evacuation was not on the cards for now.

"We have a fire that is not under control and which is moving in the direction of the city area," Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told France 2 TV on Sunday evening, local time.

"The overall situation is very unfavourable; we are in a situation that is unprecedented."

Fire crews line up by two red and yellow fire trucks and thick grey smoke fills the sky. — France's interior minister says the situation remains very unfavourable around Bordeaux. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

Mr Nunez said authorities would continue to assess the situation calmly and realistically.

As the blaze advanced, police went door-to-door overnight in the municipalities of Marcheprime and Cestas, evacuating residents one home at a time.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited fire-hit areas in Avila, one of three central provinces affected by major blazes, alongside ‌Madrid and Toledo.

Flames have devastated more than 50,000 hectares of countryside in Avila, making it the biggest wildfire in Spain's recent history, according to Environment Minister Sara Aagesen.

Huge orange flames shoot vertically into the sky above green trees, filling the sky with grey smoke. — Flames emerge from a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, Avila. (Reuters: Ana Beltran)

Spain battles multiple blazes

A separate blaze in Spain's eastern Castellon province has ravaged over 4,300 hectares, regional authorities said.

"The fire is out of control; it's very difficult to extinguish from a technical standpoint, especially because of the adverse weather conditions that will continue throughout the day," the regional leader of Valencia, Juanfran Perez, told reporters near the site.

The wildfire has entered the Sierra de Espadan natural park, which contains large forests of pine trees and cork oaks.

The fires are the latest disasters linked to prolonged drought and successive heatwaves that scientists say have been intensified by climate change.

A firefighter takes a drink of water from a bottle while battling a wildfire. — France has been dealing with high summer temperatures. (AP: Emma Da Silva)

In both Bordeaux and Avila, July high temperatures have averaged 32 degrees Celsius, almost 6C above the month's normal high between 1961 and 1990, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor.

International aid mobilised

Under the European Union's civil protection mechanism, Greece and Italy have each sent two Canadair firefighting aircraft to Spain, while Portugal has deployed more than 100 military ‌personnel along with equipment.

Two more planes will arrive "as soon ‌as possible" from Türkiye, the Spanish interior ministry said on X.

Mr Sanchez said his government would declare a civil protection emergency for the central provinces plagued by the wildfires, unlocking additional recovery funding.

A plane flies through a smoke filled sky as the orange glow of the sun peaks through. — Smoke rises from a wildfire in La Vilavella, Castellon. (Reuters: Eva Manez)

More than 150,000 hectares ‌have burned across Spain since January, he said, six times the area destroyed during the same period last year.

While wildfires have long been a feature of Spain's summers, Mr Sanchez said their growing scale and intensity, fuelled by increasingly extreme weather, required policies grounded in climate science.

'Incalculable' damage'

King Felipe VI, visiting an emergency shelter in Villamanta on Madrid's western outskirts on Sunday, said the wildfires had caused "incalculable" damage to Spain's natural heritage.

"We had a real scare," said Azucena Paguada, one of those evacuated to the Villamanta gym-turned-shelter.

"The Guardia Civil came to our house and made us leave, telling us we were in danger."

Another evacuee, 70-year-old Margarita, showed the stains on her T-shirt, which she has been wearing for four days.

"The queen came to say hello, and I was wearing this dirty thing," she added with a sigh.

More fires in Scotland, Italy

In the highlands of Scotland, as many as ‌500 firefighters have been dealing with a large blaze within Cairngorms National Park since July 15.

Residents of the village of Nethy Bridge, who were evacuated on Friday evening after a change in the weather conditions, were allowed to return to their homes late on Saturday.

A helicopter flies over woodland, as grey smoke fills the sky. — A helicopter flies over the Cairngorms National Park amid an ongoing wildfire. (Reuters: Russell Cheyne)

In Italy, several bushfires forced the closure for several hours of a southern section of the Rome ring road as well as of a motorway leading into the capital, causing major traffic disruption.

In Italy's southern Puglia region, tourists were evacuated from seaside resorts due to a large wildfire in the Gargano area, the national fire department said. Some were taken away via sea by the coast guard, the ANSA news agency added.

More fires led to the temporary suspension of railway traffic around the city of Acireale in eastern Sicily and the eastern Adriatic line south of the city of Termoli, rail ‌company RFI said.

Pope Leo, speaking from his ‌summer residence of Castel Gandolfo outside Rome, offered spiritual support.

"In light of the devastating wildfires that have affected various areas of France and Spain in recent days, I wish to express my solidarity and closeness, and I invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the rescue workers engaged in relief efforts," he said.

Reuters/AP/AFP

Israeli air strike kills top Hamas official in Gaza, Wael El-Ledawi.

Extract from ABC News

Topic:Unrest, Conflict and War

2 hours ago

A boy runs through a laneway between bombed apartment buildings. — A Palestinian boy runs past the site of an Israeli strike on an apartment in Gaza City on Saturday. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)

An Israeli air strike has killed a senior officer of the Hamas-run Palestinian internal security service in the Gaza Strip along with his associate.

Colonel Wael El-Ledawi, head of the service in central Gaza, and Major Ramez Abu Zraiq were both killed in the attack as they travelled in a vehicle through Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.

The Israeli military confirmed it had carried out a strike against a Hamas militant, but had not confirmed any further details.

A boy in the foreground and a damaged building in the background. — Palestinians inspect the damage to a house targeted by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)

The two deaths were confirmed by medics and police officials.

Dozens of members of the Hamas-led police force have been killed by Israeli forces in the past few months, including senior officials.

Israel has accused many of the force of being members of the Hamas armed wing who posed threats to Israel and its forces inside Gaza.

Hamas says the Israeli attacks on the police force violate the US-brokered October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The ceasefire halted full-scale fighting but has not ended the Israeli strikes from occurring almost daily, Hamas says.

Death toll rises

The deaths of El-Ledawi and Abu Zraiq add to the rising toll of more than 1,190 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire took effect in October, 2025.

Of those deaths, most were civilians, Gaza health officials report.

Hamas does not usually disclose its losses.

Throughout the same period, four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza.

Since the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, Israeli forces have effectively taken control of an estimated 64 per cent of the Gaza Strip.

Nearly all of Gaza's population now lives in makeshift tents or damaged buildings in dire conditions under Hamas control.

Reuters

Sunday, 26 July 2026

Archivists race to save Papua New Guinea's film collection from climate damage.

Extract from ABC News

2 hours ago

Photo from Tukana in Papua New Guinea — Films made in Papua New Guinea have been in danger of disintegration. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

In short:

Work is underway to preserve Papua New Guinea's collection of more than 1,300 film reels and tapes, stored at its small National Film Institute in Goroka, before climate change causes permanent damage.

Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far-from-ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.

What's next?

The National Film and Sound Archive hopes its partnership with Papua New Guinea could lead to similar projects with other Pacific island nations, especially as climate change poses a growing threat.

They tell the story of Papua New Guinea's rich history and heritage, but culturally significant films from the island nation have been at risk of being lost forever.

"It's a race against time," film archivist Zoe Baru said.

PNG's small National Film Institute (NFI) is located in Goroka in the country's Eastern Highlands and houses a collection of more than 1,300 film reels and tapes.

"Our power supply sometimes is unreliable, so … storage becomes an issue," Ms Baru said.

"With climate change, the place is getting hotter."

A person with gloves on preserves some film. — Work is underway to preserve films recorded in the island nation. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far from ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.

"When I first started, there were already signs of our film deteriorating and the vinegar syndrome, it was just pungent," Ms Baru said.

Vinegar syndrome is a type of acetate film decay.

An 'urgent' partnership

Enter: the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).

Using a $200,000 cultural diplomacy grant, the institution partnered with the NFI to preserve the parts of the trove.

A still from a film being preserved in PNG. — Culturally significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

"It was urgent," NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann said.

"The collection was at risk, but also the institution was really looking for ways to support their staff in caring for the collection."

Culturally significant films were selected, packed and sent to Australia, where they were assessed by NFSA staff, cleaned up and digitised.

NFI staff received training in Canberra.

A woman stands in a darkened room near a reel of tape. — NFSA deputy chief executive Jacqui Uhlmann says the collection is at risk. (ABC News: Mark Moore)

A system, dubbed the Remote Onsite Digital Access (RODA) studio, was specially designed and sent to Goroka.

"What the staff have said to us is that they now have really built an understanding about AV archiving, but that the RODA system, which gives them access to the material on-site, is particularly significant because they can have that ongoing access to the digitised material," Ms Uhlmann said.

'Maintaining memory'

Ms Baru, who is the NFI's only archivist, said the partnership had been transformative.

A group of people look at film as they work in a lab. — The digitisation process is slow and painstaking work. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

"We're just so grateful, it just leaves us speechless at times," she said.

"When I first joined the NFI, I only thought that archiving meant to just keep them stored in a cool condition and then just leave them there."

Challenges remain at the institute, including funding security, and there is plenty more content to digitise.

"It's a forever job," Ms Baru said.

"You have to continuously do things that will help sustain your archives, sustain your collections.

"This collection depends entirely on you and the practices that you set up."

A person sits with a helmet on near a truck filled with boxes. — The project involved film carriers being transported to the island. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

While the earliest known moving images from Papua New Guinea date back to the early 1900s, Ms Baru said it was not until the 1970s that residents began holding the cameras themselves.

"For younger people, now that they're exposed to more recent technology, the film archives become a handy tool to them because they are learning through watching and they're hearing their stories from the past," she said.

"You're very emotional when you realise that what you're doing, you're actually maintaining memory for the next generation."

Telling the story of a nation

A key film preserved during the project was the 1982 movie Tukana-Husat I Asua.

It tells the story of a university dropout caught between modern life and traditional village values.

The film was gifted back to the NFI last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's independence.

Stills from Tukana in Papua New Guinea — A still taken from footage recorded in Tukana in Papua New Guinea. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)

"Every nation has those cultural works that tell the story of that nation, and for Papua New Guinea that was Tukana," Ms Uhlmann said.

The NFSA hopes its partnership with Papua New Guinea could lead to similar projects with other Pacific island nations, especially as climate change poses a growing challenge for audiovisual collections.

"It made me realise how much small interventions like this have big, big cultural impact,"

Ms Uhlmann said.

"Cultural partnerships can be as impactful as economic partnerships when we talk about building relationships between nations."